Prep football: Goff closes out career in a Marin Catholic uniform

CARSON — Jared Goff lost his final game as the Marin Catholic High quarterback on Saturday, but nobody who knows him or has seen him play would be likely to call him anything but a winner.

Goff, who will begin classes at Cal in January, did his best to make his Marin Catholic finale a grand one by throwing four touchdown passes and running for another score. But what Goff couldn't do was overcome a few missteps on the Wildcats' final drive, which ended with Marin Catholic falling short of the goal line and ultimately coming up short on the scoreboard in a 38-35 loss to Madison High of San Diego in the Division III state championship game.

"Jared's a great guy, I love him to death," said Wildcats receiver Colton Hanley, who hauled in one of Goff's four touchdown tosses. "He helped me so much with my game and I just love him to death. He was such a great player."

Goff's excellence is demonstrated by his numbers.

As a sophomore, while splitting time at quarterback with Chris Tewhill, he passed for 816 yards and nine touchdowns against just two interceptions. Last season, he boosted his totals to 2,978 yards and 44 touchdowns with just four interceptions. And this year, he added 3,692 yards and 40 TD passes to his resume.

For his career, Goff completed 446 of 715 passes for 7,066 yards and 93 touchdowns with 18 interceptions.

"Jared's the whole package," coach Mazi Moayed said. "He not only has the physical talent, but the mental part of the game. He understands the game, he's very coachable, he can adapt to things and he's a great student of the game. The other thing is just who he is as a person. It really translates into him playing. He's very dependable, he's consistent and you know what you're going to get out of him all the time."

What Marin Catholic got from him early in the game was stellar play. Goff completed 6 of 7 passes in the first quarter — in which he also ran for a score — and made it 7 for 8 on the first play of the second quarter when he hit Andrew Celis with a touchdown pass.

Though Goff went cold through the rest of the second quarter and some of the third, he heated up again when the Wildcats needed him, first hitting Danny Noonan for a 76-yard score, then adding a 37-yard pass to Hanley to give Marin Catholic a temporary 35-31 lead.

"The other team just played really well, they made great adjustments," Goff said in explaining his mid-game struggles. "In that period where they scored 31 unanswered or whatever it was, we had a tough time adjusting."

Goff himself then adjusted — he finished with 262 yards passing — before an interception on a fourth-down toss in the game's closing minutes sent him to the sidelines for the final time in a Marin Catholic uniform.

"We had some bad plays in there," Goff said of his team's final, ultimately fruitless drive. "But we played great the whole game. I'm so proud of all of my teammates. It just didn't end up the way we wanted it to."

As Celis said, the outcome did nothing to detract from what Goff did on the day, this season and during his career.

"It's going to be hard watching him leave," Celis said. "But I'm really excited for him that he's going to Cal-Berkeley. He's going to be their quarterback."

Goff, who still has one high school game left — he'll play in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl in San Antonio on Jan. 5, said he won't forget the friends and memories he made at Marin Catholic.

"I'm just so happy with all the bonds I made on this team, all the friends I made," Goff said. "Nothing can really break that."